The Board oversees the strategic development of the university and ensures the effective use of resources and the general solvency of the institution.
The Board comprises members from within higher education, industry and commerce as well as representatives of the students and staff (both academic and professional services staff). The Vice-Chancellor and certain members of the University Executive Team are Board Members.
Who is on the University Board?
External members
David Furniss (Chair)
David has over 38 years’ experience in the Financial Services sector, most recently as Group Chief Executive of Teachers Assurance, the Bournemouth-based provider of insurance, savings and investments to the education profession. David was appointed Chairman of Benenden Healthcare in July 2017.
Prior to that he had been General Manager of BMA Services, the financial services arm of the British Medical Association.
David is a business graduate, Chartered Insurer and a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.
David has extensive UK Corporate Governance and company chairperson experience and has sat on committees including Audit and Compliance, Investment, Risk, Nominations and Remuneration. David has senior expertise in strategic planning, and the setting, delivery of, and monitoring performance against operational plans in complex and highly regulated organisations.
David was appointed Chair of the University Board from 11 July 2022, and is Chair of the Nominations Committee and Student Experience, Quality & Standards Committee.
John Beswick
John is a highly accomplished senior executive, with extensive experience operating at board level in a variety of global roles, and is currently the Chief Finance Officer for BT Technology where he is also a Board Member of MBNL Ltd. He is responsible for all of the financial, commercial, risk and governance activities for the entire BT Group technology organisation across the globe.
Prior to BT, John worked for Deloitte and Siemens Microelectronics Ltd. He is a qualified Chartered Engineer, Chartered Accountant, and has a Bsc (Hons) Electronics degree.
John is a member of the university’s Finance and Resources Committee.
Professor Carol Evans
Carol is an HE specialist with extensive experience of supporting teaching and learning and quality and standards. Before moving back to the UK, Professor Evans was Pro Vice-Chancellor (Learning and Teaching) at Griffith University (Australia) and recent positions she has held prior to that include Chair of Higher Education and Academic Lead of HEFi at the University of Birmingham, and Professor and Co-Director of Southampton’s Centre for Higher Education. Carol has worked at the universities of Exeter, Durham, and the Kent, Surrey and Sussex Deanery in London, and served as the first UK Vice President of the International Federation of National Teaching Fellows (IFNTF).
She is currently an honorary visiting professor at Cardiff University and professorial fellow at the University of Southampton in addition to being editor-in-chief of Higher Education Pedagogies. Carol advises on national and international educational initiatives and has achievements of National Teaching Fellow and Principal Fellow, in addition to Collaborative and Spotlight Awards for Teaching Excellence (CATE) from Advance HE. She has produced world-leading research in assessment and individual differences. Her inclusive Assessment Framework (EAT) promoting equity, agency and transparency in assessment has been successfully applied within UK and international contexts. Her most recent work focuses on making the requirements of high quality pedagogical research accessible to all.
Prof Evans is a member of the Audit, Risk & Governance Committee.
Karima Fahmy
Karima is a corporate lawyer having trained and practiced at the international law firm Hogan Lovells before moving in-house in 2011 to Grosvenor Group, one of the world's largest privately owned property businesses. Karima was Group General Counsel at Grosvenor from 2016 to 2020.
Karima currently holds non-executive positions on the Board of Latimer Homes, the Investment Committee of Clarion Housing Group and the University of Cambridge Property Board.
Karima has a degree in Law from Cambridge University. She has also completed leadership courses at Harvard, IMD and the Cambridge Institute of Sustainability Leadership.
Karima is Deputy Chair of the Audit, Risk and Governance Committee.
Maggie Frost
Maggie is currently Group Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer for a leading London advertising and marketing business, VCCP Group which is part of the Chime Group which was previously quoted and is now private equity owned. Maggie trained as a chartered accountant at KPMG.
Maggie is responsible for managing all the finances and operations (HR, IT, Legal and Business Support) of the VCCP Group in the UK and has also experience of managing the finances and operations of VCCP’s international operations.
Maggie has a history of supporting charities through her previous work as a trustee including for Westminster Victim Support and currently is joint chair of the Coroner’s Court Support Service. Maggie is a Fellow of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), for whom she was Honorary Treasurer for 8 years and is now currently a member of the IPA’s Finance Committee.
Maggie is a member of the University’s Audit, Risk & Finance Committee.
Karl Hoods
Karl is currently ranked in the top 100 UK CIO’s for 2019 and has successfully led and transformed large technology and digital functions in challenging environments.
He is currently working as a Chief Digital and Information Officer at the Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy. Prior to that, he has worked in similar roles at Save the Children, Department for Education and Partnerships for schools.
Karl is a graduate of our very own University, and has a Bsc (Hons.) in Information Systems Management.
Karl is a member of the Finance and Resources Committee.
Stuart Jones
Stuart has worked as a Director at Savills UK Limited for over ten years, operating both locally and nationally on a wide range of land and property matters. Prior to this he held positions at both PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL). He is a long-standing member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), with sound property and financial expertise.
He has strong local community connections, attended Canford School in Wimborne and now lives in rural Dorset.
Stuart is a member of the university’s Finance and Resources Committee.
David Kane
David is a Chartered Management Accountant and a member of the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment (a registered charity where he is currently a Board member and a trustee). He has a BA in Accountancy from Glasgow Caledonian University.
He has lived in Bournemouth for the last 30 years, and recently retired from J.P.Morgan, where he held a number of senior global roles as a Managing Director.
David has extensive experience of board level activities and associated governance, primarily in the corporate commercial sector and also with charities.
David is a member of the Audit, Risk and Governance Committee.
Jean Lang (Deputy Chair), DL
Jean is a lawyer and since retiring from private practice has been a Tribunal Judge. Previously she was a member of the Dorset Police Authority, Chairman of Governors of two schools in West Dorset and a Non-Executive Director of Poole NHS Foundation Trust Hospital.
During her time at the Police Authority she was a member, and then Chairman, of the Audit and Performance committee. She also chaired the Committee dealing with the West Dorset Divisional Police Headquarters Scheme (funded through a PFI scheme). Jean retired from Poole NHS Foundation Trust Hospital in November 2015 as Vice-Chairman and as Chair of the Audit and Governance Committee.
Jean is currently Deputy Chair of the University Board, Chair of the Audit, Risk and Governance Committee and a member of both the Nominations Committee and Honorary Awards Committee.
Sara Luder
Sara is currently working as a Solicitor, and has been a partner at Slaughter and May since 1998. She has been in her current role as Head of Tax for the last 8 years, and is recognised as a leading practitioner in tax in all the leading legal directories.
Sara has a particular interest in diversity, and formed the Slaughter and May’s Parent network, and formed and continues to sponsor its Women’s network. She is also involved in internal and external mentoring schemes, and set up the firm’s Female Leadership Development Programme.
She is a trustee of School Home Support which is a charity that works with schools to overcome barriers to Education, improving engagement in learning and attendance.
Sara read Maths and then Law at Trinity College, Cambridge and also has a LLM from Queen Mary College, University of London.
Sara is a member of the Audit Risk and Governance Committee.
Tola Oloyede
Tola Oloyede is a chartered fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) with vast experience in Talent Management across multiple countries. She is currently the Head of HR Projects for Europe and Sub-Sahara Africa in Halliburton, an oil and gas multinational company.
Tola holds a bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering and a master’s degree in Organizational Performance from Cranfield University.
Prior to moving into HR, Tola worked as a professional engineer in the oil industry for eight years in the Middle East, Asia and Africa.
Tola sits on the board of Heritage of Grace Outreach, a UK-based charity with operations in West Africa. She is also a long-standing member of the Scholarship Committee for the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE).
A firm believer in continuous improvement and learning, she is the founder of Kàdàrà Brite a charity that sponsors the education of talented underprivileged children in Africa.
Tola is a member of the Finance and Resources Committee.
Debbie Ward
Debbie has had a distinguished career in Local Government most recently as the first female Chief Executive of Dorset County Council and the President of the Association of County Chief Executives. Debbie has spent a majority of her career working with communities and a wide range of organisations to transform and improve public services. She is an experienced strategic leader, has led major sector reorganisations including health and local government and successfully transformed large and complex organisations.
She is a graduate of Middlesex University, with a Master’s in Business Administration.
Debbie is a member of the Remuneration Committee.
Deborah Warman
Deborah Warman is a human resources and reward specialist and Chartered Fellow of the Institute of Personnel & Development. She was most recently Group Head of Performance, Reward and Employee Relations at Marks & Spencer plc with overall accountability for group-wide strategy in all areas related to Performance and Performance Management, Reward for all employees including senior colleagues and Employee Relations and Employment Policy.
Deborah has significant experience of corporate governance senior level remuneration and reporting requirements, including those related to gender pay. She has broad HR and organisational design experience in previous roles.
Deborah was also recently appointed by the judiciary as a lay member of the Employment Tribunals where she sits on more complex employment cases involving discrimination or whistleblowing claims.
Deborah is a member of the Finance & Resources Committee and the Remuneration Committee.
Robert Williams
Robert is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and until recently was Chief Financial Officer at Cardiff University where he was responsible for finance, procurement and estates. Prior to Cardiff he was Deputy Director of Finance at University of Oxford.
Robert is a member of the Audit, Risk & Governance Committee.
Internal Members
Professor John Vinney – Vice-Chancellor
Jim Andrews – Chief Operating Officer
Professor Tim McIntyre-Bhatty – Deputy Vice-Chancellor
Susie Reynell – Finance Director
Dr Lois Farquharson – Executive Dean, the Bournemouth University Business School
Dr Farquharson is the Academic Staff Member of the Board.
Professor Carol Clark – Professor Carol Clark is Head of Department for Rehabilitation and Sport Sciences
Professor Clark is the Senate Member of the Board.
Naomie Lebe - President of the Students’ Union Bournemouth University
Naomie is the elected President of the Students' Union at Bournemouth University.
Paula Alliston – Education Service Manager
Paula is the Professional and Support Staff member of the Board and is the Education Service Manager within the Faculty of Science and Technology.
Paula is a member of the Honorary Awards Committee.
Deborah Wakely – Head of Legal Services and Corporate Governance and Clerk to the University Board
Deborah Wakely is the Clerk to the University Board and can be contacted at [email protected].